The War of the Poor by
Éric Vuillard
My rating:
2 of 5 stars
This is a short book and not one I would have picked up but I wanted for
various reasons to try and read a piece of creative non fiction fiction
which has always been a genre that flummoxed me.
This was billed as
an account of an event I knew nothing about namely the German Peasants’
War of 1524–25 and its instigator Thomas Muntzer a radical theologian of
the time. It describes conflict between peasants and gentry which I
thought might politically be interesting as even today that differential
divide between the haves and the have nots continues. As I started to
read it felt like a exercise in name dropping - the Archbishop of
Magdeburg, various Munzers, Monczer, Miinzers Johann Sylvanus Erganus, ,
Nikolaus Stroch, Mark Stubner, Thomas Drechsel etc - all names which
meant and mean nothing to me . Undaunted I continued to read about how
Thomas Muntzer read the Bible, how he transformed into a radical
preacher and provocateur. Central hear is the Gutenburg printing of the
Bible, its translation from Latin and the relationship between Church,
State and Power which as the ordinary people were more and more able to
hear, speak and read it in their own languages caused a growing
political awareness of their social circumstances and those of the
establishment. It brings in John Wycliffe , John Ball , 1380 poll tax in
England , Wat Tyler and the violent conflicts that arose at that time
between the English Throne and its citizenry . Then it returns to what
is happening in Bohemia with Jan Hus Czech translations, sermons and
their resulting riots. The writing spans centuries, back and forth, and
spans countries and it does it in 66 pages! To that extent it is classic
short piece writing, every word must count, nothing is extraneous. But,
and for my this is big but, it is like reading a potted history, like a
concise Shakespeare, so much is left out, we have just the bare bones.
This is not therefore a book which will appeal to readers of historical
non fiction, may not appeal to readers of historical fiction as it
doesn't give any depth to the characters of their motivations. This book
was translated by American
Mark Polizzotti
and was shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize which is
for novels or short story collection but I feel it doesn't quite fit
that bill. Not a book for me.
